Well, other bigger fish and reptiles have to eat too and if you think of it live food is a great nutritious food as well.I know my sister has frogs and they eat live crickets. Her big red earred slider turtle eats small fish.Unless you are vegetarian totally, you eat meat as well which involves killing animals for food.

It is sad Feeding your pet feeder fish and other feeder animals is wrong. In the wild the animal has some chance of surviving but when you put it in a tank or a cage there is no chance of escape, which is just cruel and unnatural. Keeping your pet in captivity is not natural either so feeding them their 'natural' live food is a little contradictory. Plus other food sources from both plants and already deceased animals provide your pet with enough nutrients and everything to live a long and happy life There is no need to support the production of feeder animals where they are usually malnourished and mistreated.Thats just my 2 cents

It's not wrong. It's how it is either way, no matter if the snake gets the mouse from your hand or not, in the wild at least ONE mouse would get killed for that very same meal anyway. So it's not cruel, and not unnatural d: It's food.

Gotta agree with abbiesaurus here but that is just my personal opinion. I understand what you are saying Nossie and you have a good point. It's just that in the wild it is survival of the fittest and animals have evolved so they can escape from the predators, yet this idea is totally ignored when it is in a glass tank with no chance of survival.

But if you aren't willing to offer your carnivorous animals the best life possible then don't own them in the first place, I guess you can't have my opinion if you are going to own them and that is fine. This is the main reason why I decided not to own a pet gecko, though crickets are just a bug I could not bring myself to put a bug in a fake situation where it is going to die no matter what.

Andrea: Ah, well that yes, but unfortunately, snakes or lizards don't live in glass cages in the wild, so the whole idea with the live "food" is to give them a more natural environment, like feeding clams to fish! BUT, I've got to agree that I wouldn't ever feed a living animal to another, mainly because I can't stand the idea of even catching earthworms for food for my fish... :'D I can't see much of a difference between a dead mouse and living one, when it comes to... well, feeding them bigger pets. Why can't they simply eat a dead one?

I don't see what the difference is to feed live foods to your pets or dead ones???Ever think how the dead ones became dead? It's not like they found them that way. There are big companies making big money providing people with already dead live food!I agree if you don't want to give your exotic pet the live food then you probably shouldn't own one.I think giving live foods like to a snake in an aquarium for example is better.The snake uses his natural instincts to hunt and find his prey and it has to provide him some exercise as well as stimulation to his senses. Otherwise he just sits in his cage which to me is very sad. Well maybe I shouldn't own a pond either. It's a natural death attractant to bugs. Geee all the bugs my fish have killed this summer.

I donít think there is any reasoning to be sarcastic and patronising about some peopleís beliefs as I think we all know that they just donít find the animals dead. I also believe there is a difference. I like to believe and I know it isnít always true but sometimes it is that animals that are killed for meat are killed humanely. Do you think a goldfish being eating alive by piranhas (which I have seen on youtube) is humane??? Do you not think there is a more humane way to kill this food in order for this other animals to survive? I know it is extremely difficult to kill seafood humanely but I think you should at least try. Like in Australia it is the law that you must freeze these ocean/river fish before killing it as it numbs them.

But with your snake argument, I somewhat agree. However, my friend has a pet snake and he gives it dead rats (which have probably been killed humanely as that is the law here!) and it acts in the same way when attacking and eating this rat as snakes do in the wild when capturing their prey. So I donít see why not? Why torture the rat when you donít have to?

Andrea: There are many humane ways to kill fish. It involves their spinal cord for instance, which is a very useful method when feeding them to something, you simply cut it off. Use a sharp knife right behind the head of the fish. Or like you said, freezing them.

But I would really, no matter what pet I'd have, refrain from buying any living food, because I simply wouldn't want to have any lives hanging around my conscience. Even if it'd be the life of a snail :c (Not aquatic snails though, they're cute, but a real pain to get rid of once you have them)

Abbiesaurus: Very interesting article with good points! This would remove the main reason I found "useful" with living animals for food. And in other words, I'm pretty much against it. Except when it comes to feeding brine shrimp nauplii to fish fry.